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Warden Eternal
"Your Passage has been Denied!" The Warden Eternal, additionally known as The Keeper of Secrets, Keeper of the Domain and its Secrets, The Guardian of the Guardians, and simply known as The Warden, is a Forerunner Artificial Intelligence that was constructed to protect the Domain, the Forerunner's collection of knowledge. It is an advanced Ancilla that has also acted as the watcher of the Guardians, defending them for thousands of years. Theme: Keeper of Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOoMk9rWYkc History Ancient Times The Warden Eternal was created by the Juridicals, who were the Forerunners in charge of Criminal Justice and internal peace. He was fabricated from the mind of the Master Juridical, and tasked with oversight of the Forerunner's lower tiered members of their Empire, which was composed of several weaker species. Placed as the Keeper of the Domain, the Warden Eternal worked closely with the Haruspis, who were intermediaries between the Domain and individual Forerunners, and the Juridicals, who were close users of the Domain as part of their investigations. The Warden was tasked with maintaining order by all means, enforcing the Mantle of Responsibility; he was placed in charge of protecting the Guardians, the Forerunner's constructs that policed lower-tiered worlds under their control, and as such was regarded as a "monitor" for the Forerunner's member races. Also acting as the defender of the Domain, it was his task to ensure that no other species than Forerunners would access it, and only those with proper clearances would be able to access certain secrets. After the end of the Human-Forerunner war, the Warden Eternal was given special authority to help the Juridicals watch over the newly acquired Humans, and ensure they would never again pose a threat to the Mantle of Responsibility. After they were devolved, the Warden took a twisted sense of pleasure in monitoring humanity, regarding them as weak things that were fools to dare defying the Eccumine; he had similar views to all the other species that he governed. It was also during this time that the Warden began adopting certain traits present in Juridicals; conservatism, cynical, aloof, and a general detachment from society. During the corruption of the Master Builder Faber, several Juridicals were used to further his own personal agenda. The Warden discovered these corruptions early on, and was in the position to expose them. He could have had a hand in maintaining the Warrior-Servants and prevent the rise of the Builder's unbalanced dominance in the Forerunner Eccumine; however, he chose not to, and stood by just like the rest of the Juridicals. When the Juridical rate was officially dissolved following some internal strife in the Eccumine, the Warden Eternal remained as the Keeper of the Domain and the commander of the Forerunner Guardians. The Warden Eternal's programming was used in inspiration to create another Ancilla due to his growing detachment and the need to use a more specialized system to process criminal hearings among the Forerunners themselves, since the Warden Eternal grew busy with monitoring the lower-tiered species. This Ancilla was dubbed "The Warden" due to its inspiration from the Warden Eternal; the original Ancilla charged with the Domain and lower worlds was not exactly pleased when finding out a "copy" of it was made. Assisting the Forerunners in combating the Flood as much as he could, utilizing Forerunner Soldiers as well as the Guardians, the Warden was a ferocious might that held the parasite at bay from the worlds he policed, for a time. However, even he was unable to stave the Flood forever, as the infection grew greater in number, armament, and technological prowess. Worse, when the Logic Plague developed, the Flood posed a serious and direct threat to Forerunner AI, and the Warden was no exception; he adapted to resist and evade the Parasite's attempts at assimilation, which unfortunately caused him to abandon many lower worlds the Forerunners were willing to sacrifice in order to save the rest of their empire. Near the end of the war, when the Forerunners began adopting the strategy of attacking the Flood's source of food, they began bombing entire cities of their own in order to try to stop the Flood's advance; a grotesque sight of 'backfires', clearing out an enemy's source so that they have nothing left to consume. The Warden, both as his duty to obey his Forerunner commanders and in an attempt to save himself from assimilation, willingly abandoned entire worlds to the Flood, allowing the creatures he was assigned to protect to be left open for infection as well as murdered by the Forerunner's futile attempts to stop the Flood. Many Forerunners questioned the Warden's ethics in doing so, with a few wondering if he was still fit to police the galaxy should the Forerunners survive. Eventually, the Halo Array was activated, and the galaxy cleansed of sentient life. The Warden was able to watch the Flood largely starve to death and fade from being a significant threat. He was given catalogs of Indexed species, so that when they emerged, he would be aware of their power and police them when necessary. Gen 2 With the rise of civilization and several powerful factions emerging after the Human-Covenant war, several pocket discoveries of the Guardians began to occur. For those that managed to get a closer look, they would all encounter the Warden Eternal, who analyzed his visitors and vigilantly defended his Guardians if he recognized them as a threat. However, his view on life has lead him to choose almost any sentient being a threat to order, and so whomever happens upon a Guardian, he will typically attack without dispute. Eayn During the final pursuit of Jul 'Mdama's Covenant Remnant faction, Noah Chavam and the Arbiter Thel Vadam chased the Pirate through a vast Forerunner complex deep under the surface of Eayn, the Kig-Yar homeworld. Here, Jul and his last remaining higher-ups of Zealots and Generals searched for a slipspace translocator that would take them to their secret fortress on Kamchatka. They encountered a dormant Guardian just outside the translocator, and the Warden Eternal emerged, questioning their purpose of arrival. When the higher-ups offered to remain behind and keep their pursuers at bay, Jul answered the Ancilla as only wishing to use the translocator, identifying himself as "The Didact's Hand." The Warden Eternal, instead of outright killing the Sangheili as much as he wanted to, reluctantly decided to test his ability in combat instead, and dueled the Remnant leader. While Jul's commanders were fighting and ultimately killed by Thel and Noah, Jul passed the Warden's test; the Ancilla begrudgingly allowed the Sangheili through and access to the translocator. Thel and Noah soon came across the Warden themselves. They were forced to pass the same test, upon identifying themselves as hunters of Jul 'Mdama. Together, the two managed to defeat the Warden; tempered and angry, the Warden barely allowed the two of them access to the translocator, severely tempted to simply end their lives right then and there, but following his code of honor and letting them through. (Other discoveries by various factions) Personality The Warden Eternal is determined and tenacious and possesses a haughty demeanor accentuated by his eloquent manner of speaking. The Warden Eternal distrusts humans and appears to hold the species in contempt. During the height of the Forerunner ecumene, in which the Forerunners imposed peace on most species by force, the Warden saw humanity as "animals that brought chaos and blood" as the prehistoric human civilization had successfully developed without the Forerunners and later went to war with the ecumene. He held other species in similar regards, single-mindedly believing the Forerunners as the superior, supreme race. All combat engagements that the Warden participates in is for the Warden to display power or for his personal entertainment, as he can easily evade combat and order his Promethean Knights and Soldiers into combat instead. While he possesses a singular intelligence, the Warden Eternal has several million identical physical bodies and is capable of controlling numerous bodies at a time. This makes the Warden incredibly resilient, as destroying one of his constructs has no effect on his operability in the others. Description The Warden's physical form is a large mechanical "warrior-construct", and is segmented to numerous disparate components that are not physically connected. His body is made up of Forerunner alloys and hard light, offering him impressive speed and mobility. Like the Promethean Knights, he has a "face" with a glowing skull inside. Warden Eternal wields a unique hardlight blade, that sports two blades as opposed to the usual single blade the Promethean Knights use. Powers/Abilities As the Overseer of the Guardians and Chief of Police for the Forerunner's lower systems, the Warden Eternal held an extraordinary amount of power. He held several worlds in his grasp, maintaining order and quelling any dissent that arose on these worlds, whether they were directed towards himself, the Forerunners, or each other. The Warden held supreme authoritative power when it came to subjugating worlds, though ultimately he was second to the Juridicals. During the Forerunner-Flood war, his authorizations were expanded greatly to allow him Military Power. This afforded him greater numbers of constructs, upgrades to personal armament and defenses, enhancements to the Guardians' already fearsome might, expansion to his territorial accessibility that stretched into combat zones, and even a position of command for the Warrior-Servants and Builder Security. He made potent use of these new authorizations. He was ultimately fully transferred to the Forerunner's military organization after the dissolution of the Juridical rate, leaving him the lone authority of internal justice for the Forerunners. The Warden Eternal holds a special ability not typically seen in Forerunner AI; it is a single consciousness with countless bodies. The Warden Eternal's physical form is not restricted to one being; several million constructs representing the Warden were built, each one of them stored in special crypts inside the Hearts of Guardians. Each Guardian contains several dozens of these bodies stored in special coffins, which activate upon detecting significant threats to the Guardians. The Warden Eternal is capable of controlling multiple bodies at once, further enhancing his overwhelming power in combat. The Warden Eternal's primary armament is a unique, powerful Hardlight Blade that he wields in his right hand. An incredibly dangerous weapon, it consists of a ring-shaped emitter that has several other pieces coded to it; normally they are separate, but when activated in combat mode, the parts hover and frame the blades generated by the emitter. Both primary and secondary blades are capable of incredible damage; the primary blade can destroy heavy fortifications and take out an entire squad of typical soldiers, while the secondary blade produces lesser, but similar, results. When engaging opponents at a distance, the Warden Eternal has a built-in directed-energy weapon that emits a beam of hard light from his head. His other ranged attack is a slow moving but powerful homing attack known as a gravity bomb. The Warden is able to utilize a powerful shockwave-like attack that can blast nearby objects away from him by several meters. He is seemingly capable of immobilizing opponents with constraint fields. The Warden is capable of utilizing a Forerunner installation's local slipspace translocation grid to open slipspace portals to teleport himself to different locations. Like the Promethean constructs, the Warden Eternal is able to receive repairs from Promethean Watchers. Although typically not used, the Warden Eternal is able to conjure up any Forerunner weapon to use if the case arises. This includes Boltshots, Suppressors, Scattershots, Pulse Grenades, Light Rifles, Binary Rifles, Splinter Grenades, Splinter Turrets, and Incineration cannons. He is also able to easily summon Armigers to his side in battle, typically Soldier type, and has limited access to Promethean constructs as well, including all variants of Watchers, Crawlers, and Knights. Trivia * The Warden Eternal, originally an Ancilla built by the Juridicals, is often confused with the other Forerunner AI known as The Warden, especially since the Warden Eternal is sometimes referred simply as "The Warden." The two are not to be confused; while The Warden is merely an AI that was constructed to help the Forerunners process criminal justice after the dissolution of the Juridicals, the Warden Eternal was the Ancilla placed in charge of protecting the Domain, given charge of use of the Guardians to subjugate lesser worlds belonging to the Forerunners, and was eventually acquired by the Warrior-Servants. While the Warden Eternal survived the Forerunner-Flood War, his copy, The Warden, did not. * It is interesting to note some of the Warden Eternal's rather distasteful views of life forms that were not Forerunners. Though this behavior occurred long before his acquisition by the Warrior-Servants, it is possible that this fury was fed by the Prometheans, whom the Warden held some ties to. Some may even point out similarities between the Warden and the Ur-Didact, who held humanity in a similar regard as barbaric monsters who would only bring ruin to the Galaxy, holding other species in low views as well. Gallery Warden Eternal 3.jpg|The Warden Eternal's Sylph Warden Eternal 5|A view of the Warden Eternal during combat Warden Eternal 6.jpg|The Warden Eternal Warden Eternal 8.jpg|The Warden Eternal, about to execute his latest intruder Warden Eternal 9.png|The Heart of a Guardian, which contains numerous coffins housing Warden Eternal Bodies. A face of the Warden can be seen in the foreground Warden Eternal 7.png|The Warden Eternal addressing visitors to a Guardian Category:Forerunner Category:Robot Category:Male Category:Neutral Evil Category:Program Category:Characters Category:Danno's Characters Category:A.I